Seattle

My KYRS Spokane radio interview on Sharokh Nikfar's Persian Radio Hour came in the mail this week, I've posted it at the top of the page for you to have a listen.  It's an hour long, so if you'd rather download it and stick it on your iPod so you can listen to it when you're stuck in line at the post office, there's a link for that too.

Sharokh and I on the air

I'm in Seattle for a month now, doing three months of work at a social justice organization and living with my friends Chris and Sam at the Sunset House co-op.  The house is unusually empty and I had my pick of 4 rooms this visis; I took this long attic room in the end.  I've written 2 new songs and should have them recorded and up here in a week or so.

On Saturday I caught an awesome hip hop show; Gabriel Theodros (left), probably the most progressive and original MC in rap, performing with his DJ/Producer Amos Miller (right) and two incredible vocalists who's names I don't know.  Gabriel is of Etheopian decent and grew up in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of south Seattle - evidently the most ethnically diverse neighborhood in the country.  His new album, "Lovework" is both deeply personal and political, with some of the best beats and rhymes I've heard in a while.

I also made an appearance on my friend Andrass Jones' "Radio 8 Ball" show,which I was happy to discover is located in Seattle's international district (which meant I ate Vietnamese food afterwards).  Here's how Radio 8 Ball works: members of the audience are selected after putting their questions in a hat; then you spin a wheel (bottom right) and the number you get corresponds to a list of songs (bottom right) that the guest musician will play.  The song is the answer to your question and you, Andrass and the guest musician (who was the fantasticly talented Tracy Bonham that night) try to make sense out of it.  Good times...

There was even a "celebrity skype-in" appearance from Weird Al Yankovic.

Click Here and scroll down to the middle of the page to ask "The Pop Oracle" your own question.  Don't hold back now, it only works if you ask a real question.

Perfect (breakfast) Storm

Olympia has a great farmer's market, right on the Puget Sound.  I couldn't believe my eyes when I found a mushroom vendor with a crate of wild foraged morels - the crown jewel of all fungus lovers.  I've seen them dried but never fresh; the batch you see below cost me $5 (they're $40 a lb).

So the next day, I sliced them up

and ate them with an Oakland Bay pork sausage patty (from pigs that only ate grass, forages and roots)

and then scrambled the mushrooms with an egg...

the morels weren't flashy - no crazy flavors or inexplicable musk;
but they sure packed a satisfying punch.

Moth Written Blog

I just noticed that Mary Robbins (Mary made my t-shirts and I also got to know her husband Nabil) from Portland, ME wrote a post on her blog about working with me: click!

The D.S.S.G.T.G Breakfast

This post is a full year late; I took these pictures last summer of my buddy Jonathan (hair featured below) and I making a high energy breakfast cereal that I ate every morning for the last year.

Why, you may wonder, did I choose to post this long forgotten event?  Because I'm in Olympia WA at the home of my dear friend David Scherer - the man who's breakfast food innovation prompted me to

1. buy a proffesional grade mixer (see pic 4)

2. spend almost $200 on a 5 gallon tub of brown rice syrup (BRS among us veterans, see pic 1)

3. find 10 half-gallon mason jars to divide the back-breaking tub into (pic 2) and

4. eat a cereal with the consistency of wet gravel for a whole year.

A brief history of the David Scherer, Super Goldberg, Tough Guy Breakfast:

This invention is actually a byproduct of one of David's earlier inventions: "Bihk".  Bihk, "The Milk Of Nuts" was a creamy thin liquid that david made using nuts, brown rice syrup and water and sold to the co-op as a locally made milk substitute.  After soaking the nuts in the liquid and removing the milk, a grainy sludge remained that, it occurred to David, he could eat.  He then realized it was high in protean and complex carbohydrates...and when the time came to leave the Bihk business he continued to prepare it's sticky byproduct for his own enjoyment - with a new and ever improving recipe.  

Enter the poet: I was having trouble finding a breakfast food that was quick, easy, healthy and filling.  Then I remembered David's breakfast and he kindly sent me the recipe.  It's probably the funniest recipe I ever read:

A cousin asked me to submit a recipe for a family cookbook she's putting together. I thought some of you might be interested in this for your own records, diet. David

-------------------------

Your Name: David B. Scherer

Town, State: Olympia, Washington

Recipe Name: The David Scherer Super Goldberg Tough Guy Breakfast

Ingredients: Three pounds of organic brown rice syrup (it’s best to order this thru a co-op or health food store in 5 gallon buckets), eight cups of organic raw rolled oats (not quick oats), a cup of cashews, a cup of almond butter, a cup of walnuts, a cup of dark semi-sweet chocolate chips, three cups of raisins, a shot of vanilla extract, and any old cookies you have laying around. You can add and change ingredients; I do just to keep things interesting.

Directions: First you put about a cup of the raw oats in the bottom of the bowl of your Industrial Kitchen Aid Mixer. If you don’t have one, go get one. You will break anything else you might use to make this. Learn from my mistakes. I’ve broken wooden spoons, a piece of rebar, a witch’s cauldron and my arm. Next you pour the brown rice syrup in and the nuts, vanilla, old cookies and chocolate on top of that. Then you start up the mixer. Maybe five minutes, until it’s mixed up, but not all homogenized. Then you add the raisins at the end and let those mix for about a minute. When it’s done it looks kind of gross, like some old hippie’s cookie dough. Makes about seven days worth of breakfast. Store it in the Kitchen Aid bowl in the refrigerator. Serve cold and raw with milk, yogurt, maple syrup, ice cream, pie, cake and cookies. Eat it right out of the bowl. I don’t eat it first thing. I wait until I’m real hungry, about 10 a.m. Get a serious spoon because the stuff is not only hard to eat, but it’s nearly impossible to spoon out. Assist youngsters before feeding yourself. If you eat it in the morning, you won’t want to eat until about 6-7 p.m., if ever.

Story: I started eating this in college because wanted to leave my apartment in the morning and not have to eat until I got home for dinner. I’ve been eating this same breakfast for nearly eleven years now and I’ve lived to be 32 years old. Doctors are baffled. There’s no scientific or spiritual explanation why I should like this. And, I really like it. This isn’t a joke. I don’t joke about breakfast. I’ve had girlfriends break up with me over this. 

The reason why this food sustains one’s appetite for so long is because the main ingredient, brown rice syrup, is about 99% maltose. This sugar, unlike others, takes about 4-5 hours for the body to break down. It gives the body a steady supply of energy. There’s no spike, no “sugar rush” and the body uses no insulin to absorb it so it’s an ideal food for diabetics. Of course, there are the side dishes (maple syrup, ice cream, pie, cake and cookies) that aren’t like that. Also, I don’t eat sugar after breakfast. Who could? So I’m a little hypo-glycemic when I wake up. I also go running before eating breakfast. By 10 a.m. I’m so unbelievably hungry that I’d just as soon eat sheet rock or car tires.

To our knowledge David and I are the only two people who have attempted the breakfast.  Please let us know if you ever join our ranks.

Finally, I'd like to share one of David's current projects with you, "Healing Journey" with Dr. Roger Sty Bantum (hint: it's David).

EROS and PSYCHOS from Healing Journey Television on Vimeo.

I know this post is getting long but I can't stop myself from linking to another project of David's, "The Flat Win Company".

Miss Rodeo Montana

If you came to one of our shows, you probably heard that I am producing a new Sandman album - variously recorded in Birmingham, Dallas, Dunn Ceneter ND, Niarada MT...and maybe in your town too.

Here's one of 26 tracks we laid down in our 3 months on the road, just the raw recording.

Miss Rodeo Montana

Here's Chris at the recording session of this song in Nairada at the Morrow's ranch

Note the simple hardware of my mobile recording studio, "Studio In A Bowl" from left to right: Headphones, notebook, laptop, audio interface, mic stand and mic, cowboy, guitar.

End of Tour

Whew!  After 11 weeks on the road, Chris and I have hung up our 1/4 inch cables and parted ways.  Chris, if you're reading this it was such a pleasure to spend three months living, playing and traveling with you.  It was one of the best things I ever did.  Let's do it again!

Here are a few highlights from our last shows.  More to come...

They danced late into the night at Fergie's Bar in Hot Springs MT
(and we had a nice soak beforehand)

Riding through the mountains of western montana at the Morrows' Ranch

On the KYRS Persian Radio Hour in Spokane with my new friend Sharokh

(I'll post the whole hour-long show when I get it!)

Our last show, at the Hamilton Photography Studio in Spokane - 

we got our first standing ovation!  Because we're awesome.

"Roll Out Cowboy" Trailer

The "Roll Out Cowboy" documentary trailer (a movie about Chris) has been released!  The first showing will be in Marfa, TX this thursday.


Roll Out Cowboy from Roll Out, Cowboy on Vimeo.